jkxx - Slashdot User

Submission + - Seagate Attempts To Justify Lack of SSD Engagement (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @09:19PM

MojoKid writes: "Seagate issued a general announcement recently in an apparent attempt to clarify its SSD plans going forward. Of all the various hard drive vendors, Seagate has been by far the most acrimonious towards SSD development. Former CEO Bill Watkins' plans for dealing with the introduction of SSDs was to threaten to sue the companies out of existence. Watkins is gone, but Seagate has barely dipped a toe into the SSD market. Seagate's latest official press release statement attempts to justify the company's decision to mostly ignore SSDs in favor of conventional hard drives or hybrid drives. Seagate's decision to stay out of most SSD markets won't impact the company's bottom line in the short term, but its continued near-total dismissal of solid state drives is a curious thing. It's one thing to remark that your company will continue to focus on its core business and something else entirely to dismiss a fledgling market where you might one day find yourself competing for dear life."

Submission + - Firefox 4 beta 10 available (mozilla.com)

Submitted by metrix007 on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @09:16PM

metrix007 writes: Firefox 4 Beta 10 has now been released, and is available for download or update. This is meant to be Mozilla's final beta before the actual release, which is not scheduled to be until the end of February. Is this early final beta a sign of more beta versions to come, or an earlier release? Have people finally gotten use to the lack of status bar and stopped complaining, or is it still the subject of much controversy?

Submission + - FCC Sets LTE As Standard For Public Safety Network (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @06:53PM

CWmike writes: The FCC has set Long Term Evolution as the data standard for a nationwide mobile broadband network for public safety agencies that's been on the table for nearly a decade. In a unanimous vote Tuesday, adopted LTE as the common interface for the network, which will use a portion of the 700MHz spectrum. U.S. lawmakers and FCC members have been calling for a nationwide mobile broadband network for police and fire departments since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. The agency doesn't typically pick technology standards, but in this case it was needed, said Chairman Julius Genachowski. 'In order to ensure nationwide interoperability for public safety communications there's widespread agreement that a common air interface is desirable and necessary to enable nationwide interoperability, he said. Many of the police and fire departments responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. couldn't talk to each other because they weren't using the same radio equipment on the same spectrum bands. Verizon said at CES that its new LTE service would expand rapidly, to reach 175 cities by the end of the year.

Submission + - Egyptians protest, inspired by Tunisia, Wikileaks (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by h00manist on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @06:31PM

h00manist writes: Egyptians young and old are on the streets protesting. They were inspired by Tunisia's protests-led revolution, it started even before the Tunisian president fled. Egypt receives about US$1.5 billion in US aid per year, even though Egyptian president Mubarak's dictatorship has lasted since 1981. All started by this Wikileaks document.. Got milk, I mean, document?

Submission + - Amazon Bulk-Email Service Could Lure Spammers (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @06:27PM

snydeq writes: "Amazon Simple Email Service and Amazon Web Services look to be a potent combination for businesses and developers, no matter which side of the law they're on, InfoWorld reports. The newly announced bulk email service, which will enable Amazon customers to send 100 emails for a penny, could prove enticing to those seeking a cheap way to bombard inboxes with spam, malware, and phishing lures. Amazon claims its in-house content filtering technology should assuage anyone thinking SES will be used by scammers. 'Those assurances aren't entirely heartening, though, unless Amazon is way ahead of the curve with content-filtering technology. Email services and software vendors have tried for years to keep spam and other unwanted messages from showing up in users' viewing pane, but the crud keeps slipping through.'"

Submission + - Egypt protests against President Hosni Mubarak (aljazeera.net) 1

Submitted by pinkushun on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @06:06PM

pinkushun writes: On January 25, a national holiday to commemorate the police forces, Egyptians gathered to protest against grinding poverty, government oppression and police brutality. Using Twitter and Facebook, the people instigated a series of fast-moving, rapidly shifting demos across half a dozen or more Egyptian cities. The police could not keep up – and predictably, resorted to violence. Sadly this has led to three known deaths thus far.

Submission + - Verizon to keep unlimited data plan for the iPhone (cnet.com)

Submitted by captaindomon on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @06:05PM

captaindomon writes: Verizon will keep the unlimited data plan for the iPhone for the initial release, but may transition away from that model in the future.

Submission + - US pushes Internet kill switch again (cbsnews.com) 2

Submitted by FutureDomain on Tuesday January 25, 2011 @04:42PM

FutureDomain writes: Stymied last time, US lawmakers are again pushing a bill that would give the President the ability to shut down "critical" portions of the Internet. Unlike last time however, the new bill would prohibit judicial review of the law, which would also prevent challenges to any abuses of it.

Submission + - Can Companies Disallow Personal Internet Access?

Submitted by soler on Friday December 24, 2010 @02:29AM

soler writes: I work in the sales department for a large battery manufacturer. My job requires me to go online to do market research, but for some odd reason I am not allowed to have internet access on my work computer. I ask repeatedly to get internet access on my work computer but the answer is NO. The IT department puts a few "internet workstations" somewhere on my floor. To get online I have to walk all the way to that area and use those workstations. Recently I decided to subscribe to the mobile broadband service from AT&T so that I can get online with my own personal laptop. One day my boss saw me using my own laptop at my desk and informed the IT department. The IT department then sent me an email saying that I am not allowed to use my own laptop in the office. I am pretty pissed. Have you encountered a similar situation at work? Can companies disallow employees from bringing their own laptops to work, and stop them from getting online? If yes, other than finding another job, what is the most legit way to get around this problem?

Submission + - 'KinEmote' - Control Boxee & XBMC with Mi (google.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 24, 2010 @02:07AM

An anonymous reader writes: Thursday Dec 23rd 2010 — Maastricht, Netherlands and San Diego, CA

John Simons and Joel Griffin Dodd release 'KinEmote' remote control software for MicroSoft Windows and Kinect.

KinEmote is an easy-to-use application that allows Windows users to navigate the menus of Boxee and XBMC media portals using nothing but hand gestures that are captured by MicroSoft's Kinect camera.

"Many developers are doing wonderful things with the Kinect camera," says Griffin Dodd, "While many of these projects are extremely impressive, they haven't really provided the casual user with something they can enjoy on a daily basis. That's why we developed KinEmote, a practical application that anyone can just install and use. Of course we also wanted to give people something fun to play with for Christmas".

KinEmote is built around OpenNI and NITE Middleware provided by PrimeSense Inc. "I'm really impressed that PrimeSense stepped up and released open source software for anyone to develop around." says Simons, "They have inspired developers like myself to try something new in the hope of giving back to the community as a whole. Projects like XBMC are wonderful examples of the power of open source, I'm glad we can support Boxee & XBMC in a new way by providing practical tools to leverage the power of the awesome Kinect hardware."

KinEmote Public Beta is available for Windows 32 and 64 bit systems and can be downloaded for free at http://code.google.com/p/kinemote/

Video of KinEmote in action can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y0JT0xR_a4

Submission + - Scientist Alleges Religious Discrimination

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Friday December 24, 2010 @01:44AM

Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that astronomer Martin Gaskell claims he was passed over for the job of Director of the University of Kentucky's MacAdam Student Observatory three years ago because he is an evangelical Christian and because statements that Gaskell made were perceived to be critical of the theory of evolution and has sued the university, claiming lost income and emotional distress. "There is no dispute that based on his application, Gaskell was a leading candidate for the position," wrote U.S. District Judge Karl S. Forester in the ruling allowing the case to go to trial. According to court records, university scientists wondered to each other in internal e-mails if Gaskell's faith would interfere with the job, which included public outreach and cited a lecture Gaskell gave in 1997 called "Modern Astronomy, the Bible and Creation" which he developed for "Christians and others interested in Bible and science questions." Gaskell says his views on evolution are in line with other biological scientists and distances himself from Christians who believe the earth is a few thousand years old, saying their assertions are based on "mostly very poor science."""

Submission + - Progress in Algorithms Beats Moore's Law (wordpress.com) 1

Submitted by

Relic of the Future

on Friday December 24, 2010 @12:27AM

Relic of the Future writes: "Seen on the blog "Algorithmic Game Theory", a report to congress and the president about past and future advances in information technology notes that, while improvements in hardware accounted for an approximate 1,000 fold increase in calculation speed over a 15 year time-span, improvements in algorithms accounted for an over 43,000 fold increase."

Submission + - Blizzard gets judgement overturned over WoW bots (mondaq.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 23, 2010 @11:20PM

An anonymous reader writes: Ninth Circuit reversed a $6.5 million judgment for Blizzard against MDY Industries saying that making bots is not copyright infringement. The bad news? They did violate the DMCA Section 1201(a)(2) which prohibits trafficking in products that circumvent technologies designed to control access to copyright protected works.

MegaUpload Dares RIAA To Sue Them 255

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 23, 2010 @09:31PM from the come-and-take-it dept.

Dangerous_Minds writes "Yesterday, there were reports that the RIAA and MPAA were working with Mastercard to cut off payments to so-called 'rogue-websites' like MegaUpload. Today, a spokesperson from MegaUpload issued a response to the RIAA on ZeroPaid. Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload said, 'the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising.' She also said, 'Megaupload is a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law. In five years of operation we have not been sued by a single content owner. If the RIAA or MPAA would have legal grounds they would have taken us to court by now. We suggest that they attack us within the legal system and stop labeling us until they have something to show.'"

Submission + - 7 Free Software For Reviving A Beat Down PC

Submitted by adeelarshad82 on Thursday December 23, 2010 @05:50PM

adeelarshad82 writes: Needless to say that the holiday season is a wonderful time of the year and seeing loved ones can be a great experience. But the fact is that once the reunion-high wears off, most of us would probably want to get back to entertaining ourselves, which generally means getting back online. At this point chances of encountering a PC that's in bad shape are fairly high. You know, that PC that seems to take an eternity to boot up, and when it's ready, keyboard or mouse clicks register about 30 seconds after the fact. Fortunately though reviving a beat down PC like that is simple. All it requires is having the right tools, which can actually be found online for free and better yet they can easily be stored on a USB key.

Slashdot Top Deals